5/8/19 

Romans 1:32

¹⁸ For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. ¹⁹ For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. ²⁰ For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. ²¹ For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²² Claiming to be wise, they became fools, ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

²⁴ Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, ²⁵ because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

²⁶ For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; ²⁷ and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

²⁸ And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. ²⁹ They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips,³⁰ slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, ³¹ foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

³² Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

After having read the preceding verses beginning with verse 18 this is a chilling statement.  Everytime I read it I think of the entertainment media. TV, movies, comic strips, and radio, bases it’s popularity on what is described in this verse.­­­­ Shame on me.

Looking at the list as it is in vss 18-32, it is overwhelming to think of the change, not in Christian thinking only but in the ordinary moral attitude.  What began as “I don’t do it, but if they do that’s their affair” has changed to a modern day defense of the very unrighteousness Paul condemns.

How does this particularly apply to us today?  The church and the moral community, which in the past to some extent supported it, has become intimidated by a powerful organized agenda led by radical feminist and the LGBT organizations.  These two entities have found it to be their political and practical advantage to unite in their attack on anything moral.

It is a truth of certainty that morality must have a standard.  This standard of long acceptance is the Law of God, the Ten Commandments.  A turning point of civilization was when the standard of morality was declared to be a religious symbol and thrown out of court.  Now murder is a legal right.